274 
OWEN’S POSITION IN 
of the ground and rough-hewing of the foundation- 
stones, the stately edifice of later builders could 
not have been erected. 
In view of these considerations, it was not 
altogether with a light heart that I assented to 
the proposal Sir Richard Owen’s biographer did 
me the honour to make, that I should furnish him 
with a critical estimate of the extensive and varied 
labours in the field of natural science carried on, 
for some sixty years, with singular energy, by that 
eminent man. For I have to reckon, more than 
most, with those causes of imperfect or distorted 
vision to which, as I have said, the eyes of con- 
temporaries are obnoxious ; and, however con- 
fident of the will to correct their effects, I can 
hardly hope to be entirely successful, without more 
good fortune than I have a right to look for. 
It is an enhancement of the difficulties of the 
task set me, that what I have to say must be 
addressed not to experts, but to the general 
public, to the great majority of whom anatomy 
is as much a sealed book as the higher mathe- 
matics. Even if some few have penetrated a little 
way, their progress has probably been arrested by 
the discovery that discussions about anatomical 
topics are, as a rule, pre-eminently dry and tech- 
nical. It must be admitted that there is some 
justification for the popular distaste for anatomical 
science. The associations of the subject are not 
wholly pleasing ; and, undoubtedly, a long and 
